Why Personalized Products Are the Biggest Growth Opportunity for Indian Product Businesses in 2026

Published: 13 November 2026. Last updated: 13 November 2026.

Why Personalized Products Are the Biggest Growth Opportunity for Indian Product Businesses in 2026

Published: 13 November 2026. Last updated: 13 November 2026.

Quick answer

Demand for personalized and customized products is growing faster than demand for generic ones, and most Indian print and product businesses are not set up to capture it. McKinsey reports that 71% of consumers now expect personalized interactions, and Deloitte found that 36% of buyers want personalised products, with most of them willing to pay more. For signage shops, gifting sellers, packaging units and small manufacturers, that gap is margin: a customized item sells for far more than a plain blank. The practical way to meet this demand profitably is to print short-run, made-to-order designs in-house on a flatbed UV printer, which prints directly onto acrylic, wood, glass, metal and other surfaces without minimum order quantities.

What is driving the demand for personalized products?

The short version: buyers increasingly want products made for them, not mass-produced items that look like everyone else’s. Personalization means tailoring a product to an individual buyer, from a name on a water bottle to a custom finish on a corporate gift. Mass customization is the ability to produce those one-off variations at close to mass-production cost.

This is no longer a niche preference. According to McKinsey (2021), 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% feel frustrated when that does not happen. The same research found that faster-growing companies generate about 40% more of their revenue from personalization than slower-growing peers.

For a product business, that consumer expectation flows downstream into what buyers order, what they will pay extra for, and which suppliers they keep.

How big is the personalization opportunity in numbers?

The money is moving toward customized goods, and buyers will pay a premium for them. Deloitte’s research into mass personalisation found that 36% of consumers want personalised products or services, and of those, 71% would be prepared to pay a premium. Ben Perkins, Head of Consumer Business Research at Deloitte, put the shift plainly in the firm’s published findings (2015):

“Flexible manufacturing and 3D printing enable mass personalisation at lower costs, allowing manufacturers to rethink their supply chains radically.”

The category numbers back this up. The global personalized gifts market was valued at USD 29.83 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach USD 57.19 billion by 2033, a compound annual growth rate of 7.5%, per SkyQuest Technology. In India specifically, the print-on-demand market is expected to grow at roughly 27.8% a year between 2023 and 2031, according to Straits Research data reported by PrintWeek India.

In plain terms, the demand is real, it is growing quickly, and a meaningful share of buyers happily pay more for a personal touch.

Why do most Indian print and product businesses miss this demand?

Because they are built for bulk runs and outsourcing, not for profitable single-piece customization. Most shops still send small custom jobs to an outside vendor, which adds cost, adds days to delivery, and leaves little margin on a short run.

Three structural problems hold businesses back. Outsourced work carries a markup that erodes profit on low volumes. Vendors impose minimum order quantities, so a single customized piece is either refused or priced unattractively. And plain, undecorated stock is a low-margin commodity that any competitor can undercut.

The result is that demand for personalization walks in the door and walks back out, because the business cannot say yes to one unit profitably or deliver it quickly.

What is changing in printing technology that makes this profitable now?

Short-run digital printing, and UV flatbed printing in particular, now makes one-off customization economical. A UV printer uses inkjet heads to lay ink onto a surface, then cures it instantly with ultraviolet light. That UV curing step fixes the ink on the spot, so there is no drying wait and the first unit can be as profitable as the hundredth.

The equipment market reflects this move. Mordor Intelligence valued the global UV printers market at USD 1.02 billion in 2025 and projects it to reach USD 1.58 billion by 2031, a CAGR of about 7.59%, as reported in this market analysis. The wider digital printing market is on a similar path, which signals a durable shift away from long, fixed print runs toward flexible, on-demand production.

For an Indian business, this technology removes the two barriers above at once: no outsourcing markup, and no minimum order quantity to accept a custom job.

How should a smart buyer think about capturing this demand?

Judge a solution by how well it lets you sell customization at a premium, not by sticker price alone. The cheapest machine is rarely the one that wins the most profitable work. A buyer who frames the decision around output and margin tends to choose better.

Four criteria matter most:

  • Versatility across materials. The more surfaces you can print, acrylic, wood, glass, metal, leather and more, the more product lines you can sell from one machine.
  • Short-run economics. The ability to print one piece or ten profitably, with no minimum order quantity, is what turns personalization demand into revenue.
  • Premium finish quality. Features like white ink and raised varnish let you charge more, because the result looks and feels higher value than a sticker or a plain print.
  • Reliable local support. Fast service response and locally stocked spare parts protect uptime, which protects your delivery promises and your reputation.

What should you check before investing?

Compare the outsourced, mass-produced way of working against an in-house, made-to-order setup across the things that actually drive profit. The table below shows where the difference shows up.

Before you buy, confirm the machine prints the materials your customers ask for, test it on your real products rather than vendor samples, and check the supplier’s service response time and spare-parts availability. For a GST-registered business, also factor in that the machine usually qualifies for input tax credit under GST and for depreciation, which improves the real cost of ownership.

A practical way to bring personalized printing in-house

Given everything above, the straightforward path is a flatbed UV printer matched to your products and your order volumes. At Axis Enterprises, through uvprinterindia.com, we help Indian signage shops, gifting sellers, packaging units and manufacturers choose a UV printer that fits their materials, their budget and their growth plans.

If you are weighing the decision, it helps to start with your real jobs rather than a spec sheet. You can talk to a UV printing machine specialist about the products you want to personalize, or see the range of flatbed UV printers available in India to understand what each one can and cannot do.

Next step

The personalization shift is already changing what buyers order and what they will pay. If you want an honest assessment of whether in-house UV printing fits your business, and which machine makes sense for your product mix and volumes, you can book a free UV printing machine buying consultation. Bring your current custom-job costs and a few sample products, and you will leave with a clear view of the numbers.

Frequently asked questions

Which personalized products have the highest demand in India?

Personalized gifts, drinkware, phone cases, name plates, corporate branding items and festive and wedding products tend to see the strongest, most repeatable demand. A flatbed UV printer can produce most of these on the same machine, which spreads your investment across several product lines rather than one.

Can I print single customized pieces profitably?

Yes. Because UV printing cures ink instantly and needs no minimum order quantity, a single piece can carry the same margin as a larger run. That is the core reason in-house UV printing suits personalization, where orders are often one unit at a time.

How much more can I charge for a personalized product?

Customized items command a premium over plain stock, and Deloitte found that most buyers interested in personalization will pay more for it. As an illustration, a personalized item that sells for around INR 500 against a plain blank at INR 150 shows how much headroom the custom finish can add.

Can UV printing replace stickers and labels on my products?

In most cases, yes. UV printing bonds the design directly onto the surface and cures it hard, so it resists scratching and peeling far better than a stuck-on label. That durability is often what lets you position the product as premium rather than cheap.

Is in-house UV printing better than outsourcing my custom work?

For short-run and personalized jobs, in-house printing usually wins on margin and speed, because it removes the vendor markup and the minimum order quantity. Outsourcing can still make sense for very large, standardized runs, so many businesses use in-house UV printing for custom work and outsource only bulk orders.

Sources

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